On April 1, 1801, the newspaper “Telégrafo Mercantil” made its appearance in the city of Buenos Aires, which at that time was the head of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a journalistic medium that was founded by the military and Spanish journalist Francisco Antonio Evaristo Cabello y Mesa, who had already ventured into launching informative publications of the same nature in other capitals of South America.
The full name imposed on the aforementioned media was “Telégrafo Mercantil, Rural, Político, Economía e Historioográfico del Río de la Plata”, constituting the first newspaper in the region, whose printing was produced in the so-called Royal Printing Office of the Foundlings, in the city of the port, which operated in the well-known “Manzana de las Luces”, near the Cabildo, extending its regular presence until the 17th of October 1802 – when the viceroy of Pino ordered its closure -, completing With this, an important collection of 110 copies, with supplements and extraordinary editions, compiled in five volumes, one for each quarter of its existence, which can be consulted, under very strict security measures – as should be given its historical value and impossibility of replacement – at the headquarters of our National Library.
In the beginning it reached the hands of Buenos Aires residents only on Wednesdays and Saturdays in a first eight-page version, and then it was limited to a single weekly edition – the one on Sundays – with an eight-page format, and then In its final section, it made its weekly appearance on two occasions: on Fridays with a twelve-page presentation and the other with only four pages on Sundays, in all cases packed with supplements and extraordinary numbers, as I had already anticipated. .
It was financed with the meager funds collected from advertisers at the time.
There is something that I have not yet mentioned, a fact not insignificant, which is to highlight that the newspaper was launched at the request of Don Manuel Belgrano, at that time Perpetual Secretary of the Consulate of Commerce of Buenos Aires since June 1794, who managed to achieve this the corresponding consent of the viceroy Gabriel Miguel de Avilés y del Fierro.
From its pages our hero and other prominent public men of the time expressed and disseminated their thoughts, to which it must also be added that Manuel Belgrano made use of that communication vehicle to publicize the prolific work carried out by the Buenos Aires Consulate under his charge. . That was the starting point of national journalism in its long and fruitful career.
* Member of the Belgranian National Institute. Full member of the Neuquén Historical Studies Board.